Raiders on wrong side of historic GNC soccer game

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER

The Medford Raiders ended up on the wrong side of Great Northern Conference history Tuesday in falling 3-2 to the host Antigo Red Robins.

The victory for the Red Robins marked the program’s first on-field victory in 16 years of Great Northern Conference play. Antigo did get credited with a win in 2011 when it was discovered that Mosinee had used an illegal player and was forced to forfeit the game.

But this win was fully legitimate and improved the Robins’ all-time GNC record to 2-151-1.

“They (Antigo) had the wind in the first half, which helped them,” Medford head coach Adam Derr said. “You have to give them credit as they took advantage of it. We also have not played well on grass this year. As a team, we also came out flat.”

The Red Robins were able to get a quick lead at 7:23 when they scored on a penalty kick. They were then able to add another goal just under six minutes later to take a 2-0 lead.

The backbreaker for the Raiders came just before the end of the first half when Antigo scored on a deflection off of the post to take a commanding 3-0 lead.

The Raiders did not go down without a fight however as the second half gave them the wind advantage.

The Raiders got on the board at the 60-minute mark when Gaige Ingersoll scored a goal off of a nice play from Oliver Koffler. Then at the 74-minute mark, Dayne Jacobson scored to cut the Antigo lead to 3-2.

“We had a couple of chances in the last couple minutes but just couldn’t capitalize,” Derr said.

The shots on goal for each team really showed how much of a factor the wind had in the game. The Red Robins had nine shots on goal for the game, all of which came in the first half. The Raiders on the other hand had 16 shots on goal for the game and 12 of those shots came in the second half.

“Credit to Antigo, they executed the way they want to.” Derr said, “This Antigo team is not the same as teams that they have had in the past. They have played some close games this year.”

The Raiders are about to finish a very busy point in their schedule, having played four games in six days. Along with the number of varsity games, a number of players are also playing JV games as well.

The Raiders will look to get back on track tonight, Thursday, as they take on the Lakeland Thunderbirds at Raider Field at 6 p.m. The T-Birds are right in the thick of the GNC title chase, two points behind league-leading Mosinee. They got a big win Tuesday, shutting out Rhinelander 3-0.

Medford heads to Baldwin-Woodville Monday before wrapping up conference play and the regular season at Mosinee on Oct. 10.

Tigers 2, Raiders 0

Momentum and scoring chances went back and forth Monday, but the Raiders couldn’t find the back of the net while Marshfield did twice late in its 2-0 nonconference win at Raider Field.

Derr said the Raiders couldn’t have done much better creating opportunities against a solid Tigers defense, but it was just one of those days where nothing found the back of the net.

“We had our chances,” Derr said. “We just have to find the net. That’s kinda been our problem all season is getting the ball in the back of the net. We’ve hit the post countless times and have been just wide. Their goalkeeper (Zakary Meyer) made a couple of nice saves.”

Medford held the momentum early, getting a shot for Grant Neubauer that rolled just wide to the left two minutes in, a shot by Jacobson off an Adyn Gripentrog pass that carried inches too far to the right and hit the post at 7:50 and an Alex Gonzalez header off an Aidan Ball corner kick that just snuck over the crossbar at 16:15.

The momentum shifted later in the half to Marshfield, who got a good hard shot from Keegan Fredrick that just went wide left and had a handful of other chances that had Medford’s defense scrambling.

Medford again had a stretch in the second half where it felt like the first goal was coming, but it didn’t happen. At 59:35, Ball fired a shot off a Gripentrog pass that rolled just outside the left post. After another push by Medford was denied, the Tigers flipped the field and turned the transition chance into a Fredrick goal at 61:21 as he went right to left, getting the ball just by diving goalkeeper Cale Schulz and inside the post. Medford’s best chance at tying it came on a tremendous save by Meyer, who dove to his left to get a Dominic Fennell shot that would’ve gotten inside the post at 68:50.

Marshfield iced it with just 2:21 left in the game when Fredrick sent a pass from the left corner to Trevor Meyer for an easy tap-in at point-blank range.

Medford had 14 shots, including eight on goal. Marshfield had nine shots, four on goal.

Marshfield also won the JV game 6-1 as some Raiders did double duty playing in both games on Senior Night.

“With the guys playing JV and the guys playing varsity, they put in a good shift and played a great game,” Derr said. “They worked hard. The motto for the team this year is work hard and play hard and they did both of those things tonight.

“We had enough shots. Some need to just go in.”

Medford 1, Rice Lake 0

It paid for fans to be in their seats early Saturday morning at Raider Field as Medford’s non-conference game with Rice Lake started on-time after some early thunderstorms hit the area and Fennell scored the game’s only goal just 14 seconds in for a 1-0 win.

“Sometimes that’s all it takes,” Derr said. “We’ve been talking about starting strong all season. If we could do that every game that’d be nice. You gotta play all 80 minutes. The rest of the game, we controlled that first 10 minutes, I think, of each half, maybe even the first 15. Then Rice Lake started getting into a little bit more. They had a lot more possession, especially in that first half, and we were on our heels a little bit. We wanted to come out strong in the second half. As a whole, it could always be prettier, but we got the job done and that’s what matters.”

Keegan Neitzel back-tapped the opening kickoff to Gripentrog, who carried the ball briefly before hitting Jacobson, who was sprinting up the left sideline. He sent a perfect crosser that skipped past goalkeeper Sam Jevne right to the waiting foot of Fennell, who had an easy tap-in.

The Raiders won despite losing one of their key starters, junior midfielder Michael Meyer before the game even started.

“He tweaked something when he took a shot in the warmups and went down immediately,” Derr said. “For the team to pull together when it lost one of its starters was big. He’s kind of been our engine all season. I think it showed a little bit at periods where Mike would be on the field getting everybody going and making a big play. We didn’t quite have that. But everybody pulled together and did what they had to do to win.”

At the 12-minute mark, Schulz denied a good low shot from Warrior Pierce Hastreiter, who had dribbled his way through the Raiders’ defense for nearly 50 yards before firing a shot. A handball just outside the box gave the Warriors a direct kick just before the 26-minute mark, but Schulz, again, was able to dive to his right to knock away the kick from Bailey MacDonald. A minute after that, the Raiders had their best chance to tack on to the lead, but Warrior Finn Grenier’s slide got the ball away from Gaige Ingersoll just as he was going to shoot after stealing the ball and charging in on Jevne.

At 58:40, a direct kick from Hastreiter took a funny hop, but Schulz stuck with it and covered it up in time. Schulz barely had to move to smother another Hastreiter direct kick from about 33 yards at the 64:35 mark.

“Cale came up with some huge saves,” Derr said. “He played great, defense played solid again. That’s two clean sheets in a row. Defensively, Alex Gonzalez and Spencer Rau together complement each other well. Spencer is real calm. He’ll lay back. Alex he’ll take it to teams and make a big play when he needs to. He’ll clean up everything in the back. The two of them are a big reason why we have two clean sheets in a row. Them and Cale making some really big saves. For someone who didn’t know if he wanted to be a goalie in the beginning of the season, he has really stepped up.”

PK shootout win

The second meeting of the season between Medford and Northland Pines Thursday looked a lot like the first on Aug. 31 –– dominated by defense.

In the first one, an own goal gave Medford the 1-0 win. This time, neither team scored in 80 minutes, leading to a penalty- kick shootout that Medford won 4-3.

The game officially goes in the books as a tie, but the shootout win gave Medford two points in the conference standings compared to the one point the Eagles got for the tie.

In regulation, Pines put nine shots on goals compared to Medford’s five, but Derr said the Eagles’ shots, for the most part, didn’t challenge Schulz and the Medford defense much.

“It was nice to get a clean sheet,” Derr said. “But it would’ve been nice to score some goals too.”

The shootout started with Dayne Jacobson making his shot, followed by a miss from Adyn Gripentrog and a successful shot from Aidan Ball. The Eagles made their first two, then missed, so it was tied at 3-3 with two rounds left. Makes by Alex Gonzalez and Grant Neubauer closed it out with Neubauer’s clincher barely trickling through after being deflected by the Pines goal keeper.

“Defensively we played really well,” Derr said. “Alex Gonzalez was definitely key to that, helping clean up anything Pines may have tried to get down on that end. I felt like we had a lot of pressure on their guys. They had eight corner kicks and we knew from the previous meeting they try to put a lot of pressure on you with their corner kicks. That was our goal to not let them get anything on those and we defended them well.”

The Eagles did one good shot to score late in the game, but defender Anthony Seidel made a big play in the box in front of Schulz to break it up.